[Peace-discuss] From 'Just Foreign Policy'

[C G Estabrook]

Tell your Senators to vote NO on Rubio's attack on our Constitutional rights.

The Senate is expected to vote today at around 5:30 PM ET on Marco Rubio’s package of Netanyahu demands, S.1. Rubio’s bill, which contains the “Combatting BDS Act of 2019,” attacks Americans’ First Amendment right to boycott to protest U.S. foreign policy. In this particular case, it attacks the right to boycott to protest U.S. support of illegal Israeli colonies in the Palestinian West Bank. But if they can take away our right to boycott the “settlements,” they can take away our right to boycott the Saudi war in Yemen.

This bill calls on state and local governments to withhold contracts from any individual or business that boycotts “Israel,” where “Israel” is typically defined as including the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank. State laws enacted with such encouragement have already hit individual American citizens with loyalty oaths that have forced teachers out of public employment. Federal judges in Kansas and Arizona have ruled these types of laws to be a violation of our First Amendment right to boycott.

The ACLU says that all laws punishing Americans for “advocating BDS” violate the First Amendment by penalizing Americans for exercising their protected political speech rights.

J Street’s call alert against the bill is here.

Rubio’s bill also contains broad Netanyahu-endorsed sanctions on Syria, Iran, and Russia intended to block realistic diplomacy to end the Syria war and reconstruct Syria. This legislation is a backdoor to continuing the unconstitutional Syria war that was never authorized by Congress.

Call your Senators now at 202-225-3121. When you reach a staffer or leave a message, you can say something like: 

“I urge you to vote NO on Senator Rubio’s bill to take away my First Amendment right to boycott and to continue the war in Syria.”